She took one glove off now and ran her hand over Blade's body. «You are a warrior. Your body feels like that of a warrior. Do you know how many warriors there are in Kanda? Real warriors, not just slave catchers and slave guards and slave beaters? Only a handful. And yet every fat priest and merchant thinks that by keeping his women behind veils and behind lock and bars, he is being a man. Even the Zungans are wiser than that!»

The hand kept moving as she talked, and suddenly closed around Blade's genitals. It did not take him long to respond to the pressure. Sarnila's mouth widened in a smile as she watched Blade's arousal make itself clear.

«Do you know how long it takes the High Priest to get stiff that way?» she asked. It was a question obviously intended to go unanswered.

Blade had a more practical question of his own. «Aren't you going to get me unchained if we're going to make love?»

Sarnila laughed. «No, Blade. I don't trust you that much. You might just run off into the darkness if I let you go now. Then I would never know what the love of a man and a warrior is like. Never.» She patted the purse that hung from her belt. «I have a file in here. I could get the keys to your chains, but it is a good, hard file. It will have you free when I am ready for you to be free.» Her voice held some of her father's arrogance as she said this.

Blade sighed, more in frustration than in passion. He did not look forward to being used as the object of Sarnila's lust and vengeance. He was more than slightly angry at her distrust. But he had to admit she was right. If he were free now, no power and no woman could keep him from heading out of that door and south toward Zungan territory as fast as his legs would carry him. That brought another question to his mind.

«Did the Zungans who were with me escape from the Rulami soldiers?»

«I will tell you that also afterward,» she said sharply. But he noticed that her own breathing was beginning to come a little faster. He could see one of the blue veins under the pale skin of her temples pulsing and jumping.

He was fully aroused now, but her hands still kept moving. Her skill was remarkable. He knew that in another minute he would be fighting for control. And a minute after that he would lose the fight. Sarnila would not like that. Odds were, she would abandon any plan to help his escape. Blade realized his freedom depended on his self-control.

The first minute passed, and Blade found himself clenching his teeth and his fists. Then suddenly Sarnila's hands stopped their maddeningly skilled and delicate work. She undid her sash. A quick jerk, and the robe flew through the air and landed on the floor. Under it she was wearing only a semitransparent shift. A quick wriggle, and she was entirely bare.

Naked, Blade saw that Sarnila was younger than he had thought. Her breasts were perfect but shallow cones, with small pink nipples. Her stomach was flat and hard, with only a faint crease above the sparse growth of darker hair that furred her pubic triangle. She stood before him posing and posturing for a few moments. The play of her supple young muscles under the light would have been beautiful under other circumstances. Now Blade's mind was screaming only, «Stop playing around and get on with it!» Now that the stroking hands were gone, the strain of waiting, of listening for the fatal knock on the door, was getting to him. He wondered if he would fall short of her demands through failure instead of haste, with the same disastrous results.

Finally the slow dance came to an end. In a single swift and graceful motion she swung herself astride Blade, then lowered herself onto him. As her wetness and tightness took him in, Blade knew he could stop worrying about failure. The slow steady friction as she rose up and down on him was bringing him back to peak, regardless of the tensions preying on his mind.

Then he forgot all about the tensions and was aware only of Sarnila, her endless motions, the little jerk at the end of each cycle, the little gasps from her half-parted lips. Those veins were almost dancing now. Her hands played a steady tattoo on the muscles of his chest, plucking at the hairs. Her own hair tossed about wildly, whipping about the white shoulders, vagrant strands falling down over the neat little nose.

Now her movements were speeding up of their own accord, as her body slipped out of control. Her head was thrown back until her hair hung almost vertically down her back, the ends brushing her neat buttocks. Her mouth was wide open, the moans coming louder now. Blade hoped the walls and door of this room were thick enough to muffle the sound. Her skin was beginning to feel flushed and damp.

Then the first spasm took her, throat muscles and pelvic muscles contracting and jerking and her wetness suddenly flowing harder. A second spasm, and a third; with Blade still firm as she jerked up and down on him. He was biting his lip to keep from groaning with the strain of fighting for self-control. He felt himself losing the fight, abandoned it, spurted into her with a gasp. She jerked and writhed for a fourth time, then collapsed on Blade's chest, fingers still moving idly through the hair on it.

Blade had never before worried about his own willingness to relax and even sleep in such moments after release. But now he knew he had to force his body and his mind into action, fast action, and soon. He reached up a hand to the limit of the chain and chucked Sarnila under the chin.

«Have I given you what you wanted?»

He thought he heard her murmur, «Yes,» and was almost certain he heard an equally faint «More.»

Blade shook his head. «No, Sarnila. No more. I must escape. Now. When I have escaped, perhaps I can come back and take you away to where there are many warriors. But first I must get out of here!» He pointed at her purse. «You said you had a file. Give it to me.» He made his voice as firm and harsh as he could without risking being overheard outside the chamber.

He had to repeat his words several times. But eventually they got through the erotic fog that still enveloped Sarnila. Slowly she rolled off him, knelt down on the floor, and rummaged the file out of her purse. It was a massive object, as tough as she had said, and long and heavy enough to make a good improvised weapon. That was somewhat encouraging, but Blade knew that he would have little chance of getting clean away except by stealth. But at least he could take a few more of the slavers with him if it came to a fight. He took the file from Sarnila-almost snatched it, in fact-and went to work on the staples.

The iron was tough, but the file ground and chewed its way through the staples with encouraging speed. And also with a discouraging amount of noise. Half a dozen times Blade stopped, listening, certain that the uproar he was making must be waking up everybody within a half mile and bringing them at the run to investigate. The staple holding the chain to his right wrist gave way. He turned over and went to work on the one for the left wrist.

While Blade was filing away, Sarnila was kneeling on the floor. She had not bothered to put her clothes back on, and Blade could see goose flesh on her bare skin. She still seemed half in a trance. He hoped she would get her head clear before the time came for him to escape. He did not like the thought of leaving her in this condition.

As he finished the left-hand staple and started freeing his feet, she rose slowly and began pulling her robes on. Alertness began creeping back into her eyes. In the middle of his filing and scraping, Blade turned to her and said, «Remember, I asked you about the other Zungans with me. Did they escape or not?»

She was pulling her robe over her head at that moment, and her voice came out half-muffled. «Seven of them did. One was killed outright, one died later. The others all ran away. I thought Zungan warriors never ran away-«